He underwent a “Mrs Doubtfire-style transformation”, the paper said, alluding to the 1993 hit film starring Robin Williams.
Arriving at the government agency earlier this month, he presented himself as his mother. But his deception eventually raised the suspicions of an employee, who thought there was something a little off – not least his low voice and thick neck. The member of staff alerted the police and the local mayor.
‘Up close, his neck was too thick and his wrinkles were strange; the skin on his hands did not seem to be that of an 85-year-old woman. His voice was feminine but every so often it dipped and sounded masculine.’
Francesco Aporti, mayor of Borgo Virgilio
The authorities compared official photos of the real Graziella Dall’Oglio with those of her impostor son and realised they had been duped.
The son had an annual income of €53,000 ($94,000) thanks to his mother’s pension as well as a property portfolio of three houses, the newspaper reported.
Grim discovery
Following his unmasking, police went to his home and made a gruesome discovery – the mummified body of his mother, hidden in a laundry room.
“He came into the council offices wearing a long skirt, he was wearing lipstick and nail varnish, a necklace and old-style earrings,” Francesco Aporti, the mayor of Borgo Virgilio, told the newspaper.
“But up close, his neck was too thick, and his wrinkles were strange; the skin on his hands did not seem to be that of an 85-year-old woman. His voice was feminine but every so often it dipped and sounded masculine. But I might not have noticed these strange features had they not been pointed out.”
Once he had been discovered, the police told him they needed to inspect his home. “He agreed to that. They searched the house and found a mummified body,” the mayor said. “She probably died of natural causes, but that will be established by a postmortem.
“It is a very strange story and very, very sad.”
In a statement, the Italian police said the mother’s body was wrapped in bedsheets and a sleeping bag. “The body was in a clear state of mummification,” they said.
The corpse was taken to the mortuary of a local hospital for an autopsy to be conducted.
The man is being investigated for illegally concealing a body and benefiting from fraud.
